"Eating Tuna Fish on the Moon" - Desert Winds AR 2008

* Paddling on Lake Mead *

Okay, by a show of emails, who's eaten tuna fish out of a metallic pouch at 5:30 in the morning while running across what looks like a moonscape after staying up all night trekking and paddling?

What? No one else?

Fine. I'll save the "live a little" speech and get to the juicy bits of the Desert Winds 24-Hour adventure race at Lake Mead, NV. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to the part about eating tuna fish on the run... that comes at Hour 20 of the race... but it was just one of those moments regarding the absurdity and uniqueness of adventure racing that struck me as I licked the last bits of poor old Charlie from the foil package.

Alright, let's rewind. We'll start with the all too true fact: There's no (direct) way to get to Vegas from here.

"Here" is still San Francisco, CA where I reside. You figure if Vegas is the new "Rome" with all roads leading there (heck, they only have about five life-size replicas of Rome out there), they still haven't built one from the bay area. You have to go pretty far south then make a sharp turn east on some big boring highways... or you go the "scenic" way over hill and dale along a number of lesser roads that wind through California and Nevada's high country. We took the scenic way to the tune of 10+ hours from Tahoe! There was an unfortunate accident that we had to go around, but it woulda been long either way. Add 4 hours for my trip to Tahoe and that's a lotta travelin'.

So, I've been racing with some different folks of late ever since most of my Silly Rabbit teammates have had Real Life take over their adventure racing (pregnancies - congrats Jen! Baby boy a mere 2 weeks ago!, marriages and moving, businesses, etc). For this race, I teamed up with some Californians (by way of Sweden and one of the Dakota states): Mats and Jackie from Team Aquan/Racing With Giants. Aquan is an all-things-paddling-related store in the bay area and Racing With Giants is an adventure racing conglomerate of bay area folks.

Luckily enough, Mats and Jackie both live "on the way" to Vegas from SF, so I found myself driving towards Lake Tahoe to stay overnight at Mats' and then hop in Mats' SUV to pick up Jackie -- and her 23-foot long 3-person kayak! -- in Tahoe the next a.m. for what would be that loooong and winding road trip to Vegas. I mention Vegas because it's basically catch point for Lake Mead from out here in the West. You go through there to catch the (tourist-filled) road over the famous Hoover Dam and then along the massive (and drying up, due to environmental factors) Lake Mead to a place called Temple Bar -- a high-desert mobile home and house boat community along the shore.

We arrived at Temple Bar just before sunset and set up camp in some sandy gravel in one of the campsites just on the outskirts of the community. I reacquainted myself with a number of fellow friends and racers that I hadn't seen in anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. After getting our tents and gear situated, I cooked a little pasta and tuna (no, not that tuna! wait for it) for dinner, we drank lots of water, and went off to bed after eight beers and three tequila shots at a house boat party we were invited to... okay, so we just went off to bed.

The race would start at the posh hour of 9:30 a.m., just as the sun was switching from "fry" to "boil" mode. We had all woken up several hours earlier, milled around, looked at our watches 100 times, ate some breakfast, broke down camp, got our gear ready, and finally moseyed on down to the covered area that would serve as the start, finish, and transition area for the race.

Now to truly get a feel for this race, you have to know Robert Finlay. Robert Finlay is a weathered, leathered 50-something year old high desert dude who looks 40, runs like he's 30, and drinks like he's 20. He's the owner/operator of Kayak Lake Mead, an adventure racer in his own right, and one of the most genuine and cool guys you'll ever meet. He also owns and operates the mind that put together this race. It's a piece of heavy machinery, that brain of his.

He calculated that we'd be racing for AT LEAST 24 hours, but there would be NO mountain biking... only running and kayaking. This is because the terrain around Lake Mead is an absolute moonscape of rocks and cactus with nary a trail or road. If you like fixing flat tires, you'll like biking around the area. Robert enlightened us on his 'mathematical' formula for calculating the time it would take for people to complete his races, something that sounded strange and wonderful, yet which was uncannily accurate.

Finally, at 9:30, quicker than you can say "Peter Cottontail" or "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers", Robert started the race. There was no pre-handing out of the maps to plot, no instructions on where or where not to go, no big speeches about the rules... just some vague notes for how to prepare our gear for the first leg (food and water for 4+ hours including stuff to swim in/with... if you wanted). All he had to say to us was: "Welcome to the race. This is the start. At Checkpoint One, you'll get the maps and instructions for the rest of the first section of the race. To get to Checkpoint One, head 300 degrees magnetic north from here. The maps are on an island in the lake 2.4 kilometers away."

And with that, we were off.

Sure enough, 2.4 kilometers, one barbed wire fence, and one cold, refreshing swim away, there was a small island with a pile of maps and instructions. Oh, barbed wire fence, you ask... well, the darn thing was hidden in some tall swamp grass in a gully that we were plowing through and it nearly sliced me in half. One wire bit into my shins, another into my waist and the top of my head quickly met with the top of my feet as I I went head over, stretching in half before being pulled back up by my teammates. A quick check revealed a big crisis! A barb had ripped a big gash in the Hawaiian surf shorts that I was wearing for the race! Beyond that, I was lucky to come away with a little scratch on my thigh and a few on my shins. Hardly anything to slow us down. We hopped over and kept going.

* Plotting the race on a map... on an island. *

So, I mentioned 'stuff for swimming'. Well, a good portion of the first section encompassed racers having the option of taking to the water. Already we found one checkpoint surrounded by the stuff and we plotted a few more that were in or across several hundred yards of the stuff. We were allowed to have any device short of an outboard motor to help them get across the H2O. After rigorous testing by gear-guy Mats, he figured the fastest way was to have inflatable pool rafts and hand paddles to propel us along. He also figured that lying on your back on the inflatable raft while paddling backwards with a lazy backstroke motion was the most comfortable AND fastest way. Hmm... I think Mats had one too many Corona beers during testing, but we went with the plan.

Upon picking up the maps and instructions, we plotted coordinates for the first 4-5 hours of the 24 hour race. After nearly drying out in the hot wind, we found our bearings, and then hopped right back into the water to get to the next checkpoint. Well, after all we were on a tiny island!

The first section found numerous teams -- including our arch rivals Team DART who were fielding TWO teams instead of one -- criss-crossing the landscape capturing checkpoints and "swimming" across the many inlets around the lake because it was faster than running around them. We could get the checkpoints in any order, and at one point, we deviated from the 'norm' and swam away from the field to try to get a checkpoint that we thought would entail a shorter swim and would offer us a faster way back to the transition.

Mats is an excellent navigator if I didn't mention before (I didn't). He's a dead shot with the maps and we never questioned his map and compass work for a second. As mentioned, he hails from Sweden where orienteering is a royal sport and weekend 'fun' races see thousands of participants -- from age 8 to 80 -- vying for blood.

Our 'plan' for the first section worked out well enough. We're not sure how fast other teams were at the swimming, pool floating, hand paddling, or whatever else they came up with, but we got back to the first transition in decent shape -- maybe 4th or 5th place. We probably spent too much time in the transition -- repacking gear, getting our kayak ready, plotting the next set of instructions for Section 2 -- but we didn't panic quite yet. It would be a long race.

For Section 2, we estimated 8-12 hours. We would have a combination of checkpoints that we needed to get on the kayak and more checkpoints to get on foot. We had to acquire two mandatory checkpoints first, and then we had an array of optional checkpoints that we could get in any order. One interesting thing about this race was the optional checkpoints. A number of other races offer them, either as a way to allow teams to still compete without feeling like they're disqualified for not acquiring them all, and/or because there's a "time limit" on the race and strategy comes into play. In this case, we had to be finished with the race by 12:30 p.m. the next day -- 27 hours after the start -- though Robert would eventually be a little lenient for the slower teams. Without the full extent of the maps and course, we couldn't estimate anything and just had to race as fast as possible until we got to the last section.

So, at about 2 p.m., maybe 40 minutes behind the leaders, we headed out in our 3-person kayak to acquire our two mandatory points and get ALL of the optional ones. Yes, our plan was to complete the entire course, optional checkpoints and all. Each checkpoint (optional and otherwise) was worth a point, so if you got more than the next team, you could win that way, too. Basically you were NOT going to win if you only acquired the mandatory checkpoints because a) there was plenty of time to get at least some of the optional ones, and b) it was a forgone conclusion that most teams would be going for most if not all of the optional ones since there was ample time.

Okay, looong story somewhat short here (well, probably not, but it hopefully re-ignites the reading muscles)... Mats got us to the first checkpoint, then navigated near perfectly to the second much trickier checkpoint (which many teams paddled past). Our team's plan (with a little help from a race staffer's suggestion -- not cheating, just a suggestion!) was to then paddle back to one spot about halfway between the "array" of trekking checkpoints and acquire ALL of them at once. The other option was to grab a few checkpoints, hop back in the boat, paddle to another spot, grab a few more points, hop back in the boat, grab a few more, then paddle back.

The second way sounds like it might take more time, but the checkpoints were arranged in such a way (Robert's brain!), that it looked like an M.C. Escher picture, with no clear or "best" path.

Our plan did succeed however! Well, until about midnight, when a few of the 'wheels' on our 'wagon' began to fall off, and we came to a decision point. We were low on light (the batteries in my main headlamp were out), lower on energy (15 hours of racing!), and even lower on water (Mats and Jackie had about 10 ounces between them!). We were about 2/3 of the way through the trek on this section and we were about an hour and half from our boat... if we walked straight back to it. But we were out in the wild moonscape, at night, searching for checkpoints.

With the checkpoints being optional, we all came to the decision that we'd forgo the furthest one (sorry little wooden marker!) and get the remaining points on the way back to our boat since we were completing something of an adventure racing "circle" (something that looks like a 2-year old drawing a cloud). It was a calculated gamble. We still had an entire unknown section of the race to get instructions for, plot, and complete... and at this late hour, one thought that we shared was that no team would be able to acquire all the checkpoints in the alloted time and that if we only skipped one, we'd still be in good shape.

So, we got the rest of the checkpoints along the way back to our kayak and refueled there: we had left food and water in the boat. Paddling at night can be very zen, very frustrating, very cool, very tricky, or a combo of any of the above. Yes, it was dark out, but we had a nice sliver of moon, our headlamps, and most importantly a boat compass -- a compass gizmo that attaches to your boat and allows you to paddle without taking your hands off the wheel. We made decent time on the way back to the transition, arrived at around 1:30 or 2 a.m.... and promptly found out that we were in the tentative lead! Our main rivals -- TweedleDee and TweedleDum, excuse me, Dart 1 and Dart 2 -- had NOT checked in yet. (I jumped the gun above when I said that our plan worked the best on this section, but it fit at the time). And in fact, Dart 1 had some serious boat problems. How serious? They ran one of their two boats onto a rock and nearly sunk it! So they were on foot for the whole section.

Being two in the morning it took us a bit to plot the next (and last) section of the race and get going again. But amazingly, neither Dart team arrived before we left. One thought about the Dart team that broke their boat was that they really might not make the rest of the race because they had to run across a long expanse of tricky terrain instead of having something of a respite in their kayaks where the going was certainly easier. With this kind of news, we thought that maybe our gamble on skipping a checkpoint could pay off...

With several more hours of racing ahead, we paddled back out into the night, following the bearings we set by looking at the map on shore. About 45 minutes later, we pulled up in the mud several miles away to begin yet another long trek that would have us looping back to the boat. But, upon finding the first checkpoint, we decided to turn around, get in our kayaks and head for another spot that we thought would be more advantageous to complete the section. So, we paddled for another 20 minutes, pulled up at a dark point on the shore, lifted our boat up to safety, got ready to trek... and then started trekking.

We headed up, up, and up a thin ridge with big drops on both sides and then out into more of the trail-less moonscape. We were feeling better about the race and our position in the race than we had a few hours earlier on the previous trek. It was somewhat cool out (at least compared to the day time temps), we had ace navigator Mats pointing us in the right direction, and we were virtually in first place!

The sun came up pretty early. Around 4:30 or 5 a.m. the first bits of ambient light crept over the horizon. It's a very beautiful time of day -- no matter where you are or what you're doing. We were heading up and over one of the countless hills on the course and were able to appreciate it at least a little bit. Topping out on a big plateau, we shut off our headlamps and made our way towards yet another checkpoint. We came across another 3-person team -- the first team we'd seen in hours -- shared a few words and thoughts on the race, got the checkpoint and headed off for the next.

And here, good fans, was were -- after a big ready-made Chef Boyardee mac and cheese, a ready made beef stew, another Power Bar, some energy gels, and a beef jerky all in the last two hours -- I was still hungry enough to pull out that pack of tuna! Yes, I was at the point in the race where my stomach had totally given up on trying to feel pain and suffering, and I get, well, ravenous. As usual, I asked my teammates if they happened to have a hamburger on them. As usual, they all said 'no'. So, it was out with the foil pack of tuna. After so many hours, I find my body really craving the protein.

Though the sun was not over the horizon, it was pretty light out. So light that you could run, jump, crawl or whatever without extra lights. We could see for miles and miles... and we could eat tuna! On the run! At 5:30 a.m.! And our mom's wouldn't tell us to finish our milk!

Yes, we were once again trying to put a little hee-yah in our get-a-long and picked up a light jog across the flat plateau. And as we jogged, and as I ate the tuna, and as we witnessed the beautiful morning light, I had one of those giddy self-conscious moments where you say... "What the Hell am I doing?!" And then you just laugh a little and go on.

After the tuna, and after racing down another loose hill and across a scrub filled meadow, I was feeling pretty good. So I slashed ahead, and up to the next checkpoint which was tucked under the overhang of a big sandstone mesa that jutted a few hundred feet up from the ground.

We then trekked for another hour and a half, acquired the rest of the checkpoints on this section and made our way back to our kayak at about 8:30 a.m. We had not seen Dart since around noon the day before. We believed we were still in virtual first place. All we had to do was capture one more checkpoint and then the finish line.

To get the last checkpoint, we paddled out to a small "island" (a piece of land that was unfortunately jutting out of the water due to the aforementioned low water level). I jumped out, scrambled up some sun bleached rocks about 75 feet above the water to read the writing on the checkpoint marker, and then leapt back down to the boat so we could head for home. Another 30 minutes later, we pulled up at the landing and at around 9:30 a.m. -- almost exactly 24 hours after starting -- we made our way to the shaded benches to check in at the finish line.

We had arrived in virtual First Place! A few other teams had "finished" but had acquired many less checkpoints, so we were ahead on points. All we had to do was watch the clock and wait to see if DART or anyone else could get all the checkpoints and make it back in time. We actually decided to watch the clock from the restaurant at the landing because we were naturally still ravenous after racing for so long. The restaurant had a view of the landing and the shaded benches....

And... about 40 minutes after we finished, as we dug into our omelettes and milk, BOTH Dart teams arrived, together. The Dart team that had been on foot after breaking their boat had caught up to the other Dart team and they traveled together the rest of the way. They strutted up the small hill to the benches and promptly checked in to the finish line. They were well within the race time limit. And... BOTH teams had acquired ALL the checkpoints thereby "beating" us through sheer points.

We kicked ourselves for a short time for not sucking it up and going for that last checkpoint, but that's why hindsight is 20/20. For being the first time the three of us raced together, we had a pretty good race and enjoyed the madness that Robert the race director threw at us.

~Rick Baraff
Web Site: coming soon

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